2024 Startups to Watch: Mpruv Sports swings for greater inclusion in traditional athletics

Editor’s note: Startland News editors selected 10 Kansas City scaling businesses to spotlight for its annual Startups to Watch list. Now in its ninth year, this feature recognizes founders and startups that editors believe will make some of the biggest, most compelling news in the coming 12 months. The following is one of 2024’s companies.

Click here to view the full list of Startups to Watch — presented with support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, and independently produced by Startland News.

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Increasing access to traditional country club sports powered Mark Lukenbill’s long drive to launch Mpruv Sports, he shared.

“I grew up in golf,” he explained. “I’ve played since I was 7 and really hate the exclusive identity that golf has cultivated for itself over the past 30 or 40 years.”

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Elevator pitch: Mpruv Sports connects people and businesses to golf, tennis and pickleball lessons. The platform enables beginners, existing players, parents and companies to gain access to instructors for lessons and for tailored team-building events. Mpruv Sports’ mission is to drive access and inclusion by connecting.

• Founder(s): Mark Lukenbill
• Headquarters: Basehor, Kansas
• Founding year: 2022
• Current employee count: 7
• Funding to date: $90,000
• Noteworthy investors: Digital Sandbox KC
• Noteworthy programs completed:  NXTUS Accessing Growth Capital, NXTUS Enterprise Engagement Cohort, KU Innovation Park Accelerator, Digital SandBox KC, Douglas County CORE

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In February 2023, Lukenbill officially launched his premier product — Mpruv Golf — an application for booking coaches.

The pandemic — while bad for a gamut of everyday experiences and activities — was good for golf, he noted. People were forced outside and new players were drawn to the game.

“Since COVID happened, the game has gotten so much younger,” Lukenbill continued. “It’s a different style of individual that’s on the course. We’re seeing more and more people that play the game like I do — which is music on, social, high fiving, lifting each other up, having a great time while we’re out there — and not so much the perceived game, which is guys in goofy pants getting mad when you talk during their backswing.”

From the archives: Startup’s tech putts golf clubs (and expertise) in reach with on-demand caddies, coaches

Once Lukenbill launched Mpruv Golf, he realized the same problems exist in other sports. So six months later, the peer-to-peer, on-demand sports education marketplace expanded to include tennis, pickleball, and baseball.

“I feel like the players are getting younger,” he added, “but the access and the resources for education is still the same as it was 15 years ago, which doesn’t fit the mold of the player anymore.”

On top of expanding the list of sports over the past year, Mpruv Sports also started to pivot to a progressive web app to make scheduling and sign ups easier, to explore offerings for corporate companies to lean into the mental and physical health side of benefits and perks, to partner with organization like X-Golf Parkville and Pin High Golf to be its lesson provider, and to grow its team, including adding COO Matt Doud, according to Lukenbill.

Founding members of the team also include Tyler Ring; Logan Hill, sales leader; Tricia Garrett, partnerships; Anne McKinney, support/success; and Cheyenne Canales, public relations/strategy.

The startup received Digital Sandbox KC funding in spring 2023. The following fall Mpruv Sports was chosen for the NXTSTAGE Enterprise Engagement Series by Wichita-based NXTUS.

“With all of these local parts and pieces of the entrepreneurial ecosystem being able and being willing to help, it’s just been tremendous for us,” Lukenbill said. “It just put us in a position to succeed, which just proves that the point and the problem we’re trying to solve still exists and needs to be solved.”

RELATED: Mpruv Sports adds pickleball, tennis to its on-demand edtech platform, strengthens C-suite roster

Mark Lukenbill, Mpruv Sports, pitches Nov. 15 at Cargill Protein Headquarters for the 2023 NXTSTAGE Enterprise Engagement Series; photo courtesy of NXTUS

In early 2024, Lukenbill shared, the team plans to launch a new progressive web app, open a pre-seed fundraising round, and continue to build partnerships. One of those partnerships is with APEC (Athlete Performance Enhancement Center) in Dallas to offer resources in the adaptive learning space.

“There’s a couple of competitors that exist in our space right now trying to create a technology bridge between player and instructor,” he explained. “But there’s nothing that exists between a special needs player and/or a special needs instructor. So we think there’s a really good opportunity for us to offer some value to the community there, too.”

While Lukenbill and the Mpruv crew still plan to focus on Kansas City, they are also hoping to start introducing Mpruv Sports to other cities like Dallas, Chicago, Denver and Salt Lake City by putting on free lesson days for the community, he noted.

“Just letting people know this exists and that it’s free,” he continued. “That if anybody wants the opportunity and resources to learn, it’s here for them.”

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Kansas City Startups to Watch in 2024

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Startups to Watch is possible thanks to support from the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, a private, nonpartisan foundation that works together with communities in education and entrepreneurship to create uncommon solutions and empower people to shape their futures and be successful.

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